Anne-Marie Zulkahari is one of the foremost teachers of and authorities on Pilates and yoga in the UK. She boasts an impeccable professional lineage, having learned her craft under the tutelage of Robert Fitzgerald, a Pilates elder who was also responsible for teaching the man who would go on to introduce Pilates to the UK – Alan Herdman.
Anne-Marie has been a key proponent of the Pilates method in this country having
co-founded the Pilates Foundation UK Ltd and the Pilates Foundation Teacher Training Accreditation: she is a former member of its Teacher Training Committee and was key in raising and maintaining high standards of teaching in the profession via the setting of guidelines for member studios and candidate examination.
Anne-Marie established Pilates and Yoga Movement – Kilburn in 1994. The Clerkenwell studio opened in 2012. She devised her own highly-regarded Pilates Teacher Training Programme in 2000: unrivalled in the UK in its scope and quality. The course has expanded in its depth and what it has to offer with the addition of five senior tutors all senior teachers at PYM, integrating Body-Mind Centering, Feldenkrais and Anti-Gymnastique methods of well-being.
Anne-Marie also co-directs the Yoga Teacher Training Course (LYTTC) which is accredited with British Wheel of Yoga in Clerkenwellbeing, London following in the tradition of Mary Stewart and Vanda Scaravelli.
Originally trained as a dancer – at Arts Educational Trust, one of her first professional engagements was the BBC’s childrens’ television series – ‘Playaway.’ The 1970s took Anne-Marie to New York where she danced with leading choreographers; acted in off-Broadway plays and worked as a freelance teacher and choreographer, teaching Ballet, Jazz, and Graham and Horton-based Contemporary dance. She also discovered yoga here, and furthered her training alongside her dance career. A perhaps inevitable injury proved serendipitous, introducing her – in 1976 – to Robert Fitzgerald. She went on to train and work with Fran Lehen, herself a key figure in the Pilates movement.
Returning to the UK in 1985 Anne-Marie worked with Alan Herdman’s Pilates studio for six years and taught Pilates at the Royal Ballet School.
Ever mindful of keeping her teaching approach fresh and relevant, Anne-Marie has over the years, completed teacher training in Cranial Sacral therapy and certified in the Gyrotonic® form of movement. In 2017, she completed Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s four year ‘Body-Mind Centering’ (BMC) practitioner programme (a somatic approach exploring movement re-education through the study of early developmental movement, basic neurological patterns and the systems of the body). Most recently, she completed further BMC studies and is now a teacher trainer for the SME and Practitioner programmes.
Anne-Marie is driven through all aspects of her work to aid the client to move fluidly and efficiently with a deeper understanding of their own bodies and mind. Her extensive knowledge and understanding of the human body, acquired over 30 years of studying and embodying movement, whilst working closely with Physiotherapists and Osteopaths, means she particularly enjoys working with a wide range of clients.
Outside of the studio, she is proud to have her family and when time allows, climbing, walking her two irresistible chocolate brown springer Spaniels – Mimi and Mala and tending to her allotment.